No matter
how hard you try, the inevitable cannot be denied- the lack of performance, the
never ending load cycles and the ‘Please Wait’ interruption which at its worst
can appear as “Not Responding” above your explorer screen.
It is
quite frustrating that at times when crucial work is demanded, your machine may
not feel like doing it, and it could just make you not hesitate to have it
destroyed.
That’s not
your fault processor and neither are my RAM chips responsible for the delay, at
least, not entirely. We’ll explore why your Hard Disk Drive is the culprit
because of whom you suffer.
Let us
explore some of the few reasons why your machine maybe lagging and how to
accelerate the performance of your PC:
Before we begin
; Pre-check, if you have a decade old PC, with little RAM and old processor,
these stuff isn't going to work for you, you need to upgrade your hardware to
see any boosts.
1. Running a Security Scan:
Running a
security scan is always a good idea. You will be redirected, by default, to
Windows Defender, previously known as Microsoft Security Essentials. It keeps running a quick scan in the
background and informs you about
the threat being at bay but the truth is far from that. Auto scan may save you
the hassle of scanning your computer manually, which is a chore anyone rarely
would do, but what it does is that it skips chunks of data the antivirus
program deems un-infected.
·
Skip
quick scan: Quick scan only scans set places where viruses are more likely to
set their claws upon. A manual deep scan will scan thoroughly all the files on
your drives and find out any hidden viruses that may be slowing down your PC.
·
Update
your virus and spyware definitions frequently.
2. Take out the Trash:
Junk files
slow down your PC. It is always better to delete unwanted files permanently.
·
Have
your disks cleaned up using the Disk Cleanup utility, removing all that those
temporary internet files and error log files, which are only there for
statistics purposes.
·
Programs
that are of no use now and are running quietly in the background should be
uninstalled. They are responsible for the slip in processing power, storage
space and the occupation of your RAM.
3. Repair your Hardware and Software as well:
·
Defragmenting can do wonders to your
Hard Disk. All you have to do is right click on the Disk Partition you want to
defragment>Click on properties from the drop down menu>Select the Tools
tab>Click on defragment disk. Hard Disk Drive must be defragmented
on a regular basis.
·
On the other hand, if
you’re running a Solid State Drive (SSD) then defragmentation is not necessary
for you since it doesn’t have platters that are moving, data is set in packets
and it is accessed individually. SSDs are far much faster than HDDs
·
Error-Check for your
storage drive as it is quite necessary as well. Its accessible via the tools
tab just as the defragging utility.
4. Restoring and Reinstalling:
·
Going
back to a restore point doesn’t do much especially if they are on the same disk
as your data. With multiple restore points created it would be difficult to
find the restore point that would not alter much of the user data (be one of
the most recent ones) not be the carrier of any sort of malicious code.
Basically, you need to run by trial and error in-order to find the right
restore point. Aside from that you can reset your PC. Backup your files on an
external media. Scan the media for any virus and reset your PC. Copy your files
back to where they were and viola, you’re done.
·
Sometimes,
PC slowing down is not because of a virus or malware, but because of a rogue
program, if you have recently installed a program and your PC started running
slow, consider restoring your PC to a point earlier than the install, these
restore points are made automatically (if enabled) and can be accessed from
Control Panel.
·
If
none of the above options work, a fresh copy of Windows can be installed, this
will clear out your drive and reset all settings, be sure to back up your
important data before doing this operation.
5.Tweaking:
·
Conventional people like me still running a HDD
instead of a SSD should consider re-evaluating the amount of memory used in
paging. No, you don’t have to use the command prompt for this one.
·
Go to the search bar and type ‘View advanced system
settings’>Under the performance header, click on settings>Navigate to
‘Advanced’>Under the ‘Processor scheduling’ header select programs then
under the ‘Virtual Memory Header, click on ‘change’>Now uncheck the dialogue
box: ‘Automatically manage paging size for all drives’> Click on custom
paging size> now it is purely up to you to set the paging size. The
recommended size would be:
· 
Click Ok
after setting the values.
·
To turn down the unnecessary glamorous effects, just
go to the search bar and type ‘View advanced system settings’>Under the
performance header, click on settings>Click on Visual Effects>Uncheck the
ones not needed> Click on Apply and you’re done.
·
If you really want to run your rig on peak
performance with respect to a dedicated task, then uncheck all.
·
I do recommend keeping the following options checked
to ensure easy; ‘reading off the screen’ experience.
·
Up next: to disable some pre-installed programs that
are hard to remove. Fret not, for you only need to access the Control Panel. No
geeky expertise required here either.
·
Go to Control Panel>Click on Programs>Click on
“Turn windows features on and off”>Now uncheck Internet Explorer 11, because
come on….No one wants it, not even Microsoft I guess.> Select OK.
Overview :
·
It’s
a device and like the rest it’ll wear out. It’s probably not a good idea to
still be running a Pentium 3 computer with a monitor and a mouse that mimics
your hand movement using a ball; no offense if you do so, but its wise to
upgrade your hardware every now and then.
·
Make
sure you don’t let your PC sleep or hibernate that often. Let it shut down once
a week so that all processes are put to rest. This improves battery timings as
well.
·
Limit
the processes at start up. The lesser they are the easier to deal with them.
·
A
brief comparison of an SSD and a HDD in speeds is as follows :
Ø SSDs operate
in hundreds of microseconds.
Ø An SSD can
deliver new life and high performance even on systems that are a few years old
(as long as they have a SATA compatible interface). An XP-based system can see
its boot-up times cut from many minutes to one or less, making an SSD a
performance storage upgrade.
Ø SSDs are subject to their endurance
limit which presently is 20 GB write per day operations for a period of 3
years. You’ll certainly have to replace your Solid State Drive after a period
of 3 years or so. HDD endurance isn’t a myth though they wear out over time as
well but are more likely to outlive some of their users.
Hope all the above mentioned steps prove to be 'life-saver' for your computer.Stay tuned for more of this!
Written by:
M Waleed Khan
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